More Lies
by CinciReds
Summary: Set four years after Mockingjay, Twenty years ago Lucia Mellark and Lawrence Hawthorne had an affair, now Peeta and Gale have more in common than they previously knew. Oneshot.


**Note: In this fanfiction Peeta's mother is still alive. **

**Loosely based off of **_**Always Real**_** by peetasandherondales**

"Gale I need to talk to you, it's important." Hazelle calls to her oldest son while they were alone in the house. They had moved to Victor's Village after their home was destroyed four years ago during the rebellion. He emerges from the backyard where he was skinning the night's dinner, "Yeah mom, what can I do for you?" Hazelle studies her son he looked so much like his father it pained her, same grey eyes and dark hair. Same broad shoulders and tall frame; the same ability to hunt and to care about his family so much. She sighs, "Gale sit down because this is going to take awhile."

Gale sat down at the kitchen table, his mother sitting across from her. He couldn't understand why she would want to talk to him, he had done nothing wrong. Picking up Posy when asked, helping Rory with his history homework, throwing ball with Vick. When it was important, it was very bad. She took his hand (another bad sign) and closes her eyes. "Honey, when you were two your father and I hit a rough patch. We couldn't be in the same room without arguing and we hated each other. We had agreed to separate for a while and get our heads on straight before we ended up broke and alone. I had stayed with you while your dad went around with other women."

It pained him to hear this about his father, but couldn't find it relevant to anything (he had known this wasn't good,) She continued; "Now he had an affair with one woman for a while. I thought I had lost him forever to her, but she was married. They had seen each other for three months before," she pauses before letting the final blow hit him, "he got her pregnant."

It hits him hard. First confusion fills him, why would he need to know this? Then he fills with rage, not only did his father cheat on his mother, but he had gotten a married woman pregnant. And he had another sibling. He tries to keep his tone even, although he would love to scream at his mother he couldn't. "Who was she?" he says. His mother looks up with tears in her eyes,  
"Lucia Mellark."  
-

Peeta Mellark runs out of his mother's bakery as quickly as he can. He couldn't go home; his home was too close to the Hawthorne residents, his 'half brother' lived there. His feet carried him to the meadow, where he sat down and thought back to what happened just 15 minutes earlier.

"_Peeta, you're not a real Mellark." Lucia said icily as she was putting the bread in the oven. He looks up from the bread he was kneading and turns towards her mother. "What do you mean? Of course I'm a Mellark. Dad-"She cuts him off sharply, "Your father was a Hawthorne! You are the son of Lawrence Hawthorne, not of Jonathan Mellark." The information sinks in, quicker than he had hoped. "What about my brothers, are you saying they're only my half brothers?" Mrs. Mellark gives a curt nod and goes back to the bread that had been heated. "And, you cheated on dad?" Rage fills him as his mother closes her eyes and gives him a tiny nod. _

_He doesn't believe her until he sees his reflection. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, like his mother, and a face structure like her. But the rest of his build was foreign; it didn't look like his father's or brothers'.  
It looked like Gale Hawthorne's. _

Peeta knows he's being followed, and he knows who it is. He can feel her movements; maybe it's because of the near death experiences they had faced together, or because he spends every day and night with her. She sits down next to him while he stares at the woods ahead. Normally he would take her hand, put an arm around her, _talk _to her. But he continued to sit there and stare into the distance. "Peeta something's bothering you, can you at least tell me what it is?" Katniss asks him in a concerned yet annoyed tone. She swears a tear comes out of his eye before he covered his face and sighs heavily. He starts mumbling things into his hands that she can't understand, when she tells him he lifts his head.

"More lies. My life has been a lie; my brothers are only my half brothers. My father wasn't even my father, mom cheated on him and I'm the product! I am now caught in the middle of everything; you know what my mother said? That I'm not a Mellark- I'm a Hawthorne, Gale is my half brother and no one bothered to tell me." He gets up and starts walking towards the woods, Katniss following him. "Peeta where are you going?" He doesn't look at her when he tells her to leave him alone, "I need to go kill something before I have an episode." Tears are in her eyes as she stops, watching her love run towards the woods.  
-

Bow in hand, Gale treks through the woods silently. He had to get away from District 12 for a while, to get away from the problems of the past and present. A doe is about thirty feet away from him, stringing the arrow to make his kill. The doe falls dead before he's able to make his kill, he sees the handmade spear sticking out of its side. He throws his bow down in frustration and sits down cursing under his breath. He looks up to find out who killed his prey, and finds his 'brother' skinning it.  
-

Peeta knows this isn't who he is, that he should be taking his anger out on something else. Maybe paint what he feels or bake, but those were both skills his dad (not _father_) had taught him. But he had felt the need to get his hands dirty (or it could have been the desire to be closer to his real father, he denied the thought quickly.) He hadn't really meant to kill the deer; he saw it and released his spear from forty feet away. Saying a silent thank you he started skinning the deer. It reminded him of when Cato had been shredded to pieces by the mutts in his first games, but he pushed the memory away and focused on the older doe.

The bushes rustled, making Peeta alarmed. There was no wind that could have caused it; he knew someone else was here. "What are you going to do with a 100 pound deer Mellark?"  
-

Gale hides his smirk when Peeta looks up alarmed. "Gale you can have it, I don't care. Honestly I don't know why I'm out here." He couldn't tell if Peeta knew yet, but he knew something was off if Mellark of all people was in the woods alone. "So I'm going to guess you heard the news. Otherwise you'd be at the bakery, right?" it was a rhetorical question (and a bit rude) but Gale couldn't help it. Peeta looks at the ground before standing up, "Yeah I heard thank you very much, so go ahead. Yell at me, cuss me out, both have already happened won't hurt if they happen again." he said in a sour tone, turning his back to Gale. In return Gale straightened his shoulders and tightened his jaw, "I know this is hard for you, it is for me too. Imagine what I'm going through, I've provided for my family for nine years now and I suddenly find out my brother could've helped me out."

Peeta suddenly stands and turns around, his eyebrows knit together, "Hard for you? I found out my father wasn't my father! My brothers are only half of who I thought they were and I have four other siblings. I've been lied to way too much; the Capitol tells me that Katniss is my enemy when I've actually loved her forever. Coin tells me that it's safe to go with you to the Capitol to kill Snow, I end up killing Mitchell. Now I find out that my whole life has been a lie? It's hard." His voice cracks at the end and tears are threatening to pour out of his eyes.

But he's right.

Gale didn't think about how hard it must be for Peeta; at least he had known his father and who his siblings were. He doesn't have seven half siblings, in a way Peeta is an only child. "I'm sorry Peeta, you're right." They sit down and both started skinning the deer that had been shot earlier. They evened the portions to carry out of the woods, and had talked about different things throughout. "Gale why don't we stop by the bakery, I can get some bread for your family if you'd like." He nods, but sees his hidden agenda.  
They both want more information.

Mrs. Mellark gives them limited information; they keep asking her questions that she won't answer. "Here is what I will give you; Peeta was the product of a stupid choice I made. If I could I would go back and abort him, get rid of any evidence and forget!" She slaps Peeta hard across the cheek, he stumbles back a little bit before Gale pins Lucia up against the wall. "You don't talk about my little brother like that." He says before letting her go and dragging Peeta out of the bakery.  
-

_**Epilogue (11 years later)**_

Their kids play in the meadow.

Gale ended up marrying Delly Cartwright when she had moved back to District 12 and Peeta had convinced Katniss on having kids after the war. The little Mellark girl ended up having blue eyes and dark hair while the little boy had his mother's eyes and father's hair. The Hawthorne children both got their father's features, but not lacking their mother's friendly personality. They're well aware that they're cousins, although their last names are different. Someday the children may find that it's odd and want to know more, but they'll cross that bridge when they come to it.

Peeta and Gale had become real brothers, not just half blooded. They ended up running the bakery together when Lucia died five years back, Gale wasn't much of a baker but he helped when he could. They were each other's best friend, the person who always had their back throughout everything.

"Peeta, your mother was wrong. You're not the product of a mistake; you're a man that I'm proud to call my brother." He says to him while they walk home from the grassy field. The children run ahead of them while their wives were back in the Victor Village. "Thanks Gale, you know I'm kind of glad that it was kept from us. Who knows where we would be now if we knew?" They shared a smile before entering the Mellark household where they found Effie Trinket sitting with her arms crossed on the sofa.  
"So you two are brothers, and you didn't tell me?"

They share a glance before running out of the house, their families calling them back.

**Note: That was the longest thing I have ever written! Hope you liked it, please review!**


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